After breakfast at the Pancake Pantry (another great breakfast restaurant), we dropped Terry off at Ashley and Carlos' house, and Lucia and Esmond and I went for a tour of the Ryman Auditorium. In addition to the usual displays of various artifacts in glass cases, there was a series of video presentations narrated by such celebrities as Trisha Yearwood, Keb 'Mo, Nicole Kidman, Sheryl Crow, Marty Stuart and Ricky Skaggs describing various aspects of the history of the Ryman. There's also this impressive display of all of the people, performers, plays and other productions that have taken the stage at the Ryman over the years:
...and this bronze statue of Roy and Minnie:
Unfortunately, Minnie's hat puts the top of her head in shadow - I wasn't able to find a camera angle that avoided that.
After the tour, we went back to the house and visited for a while, and then gave Mirta a lift to the airport to catch her flight home. Then, after dinner at Las Cazuelas, a Mexican restaurant, we took Carlos and Ashley and Terry back to the house, and Lucia and Esmond and I went honky tonking in downtown Nashville. To quote again from the 2021 trip log:
Four or five blocks of Broadway in downtown Nashville are occupied by a seemingly endless succession of music clubs, bars and honky tonks... Each bar has a band playing, and every one has windows open to the sidewalk, and none of them have a cover charge. So downtown Nashville is a nonstop party every night - particularly on the weekend.
There are a dozen or so venues per block, which is, as I mentioned in the 2021 log, "an awful lot of music per square inch." What I discovered on this trip, which I hadn't noticed before, is that many of the clubs have multiple floors, with a different band playing on each floor!
We wandered up and down, stopping in at one club after another, listening to a song or two, occasionally having a drink, and moving on to the next place. As you might expect, nearly all the music was country... but not always. We stopped into one place, and the band was playing "Purple Rain," by Prince, and at the next place, they were playing "Sweet Child O' Mine," by Guns 'n' Roses. At each place, we said "That ain't country!" and moved on. Don't get me wrong, they're both great songs - but this night, we wanted to stick to country.
Several music stars own clubs in Nashville - Alan Jackson, Blake Shelton, Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryan, Kid Rock, and Miranda Lambert, to name a few. One of the places we dropped into was Miranda Lambert's club, Casa Rosa:
Now, notice the big neon sign that says "Miranda Lambert Live!" So I assumed that the woman on the stage was the real Miranda Lambert. But later, when she introduced the band, she identified herself as "Jackie." I don't know, though... I've looked at pictures of Ms Lambert, and that woman in the picture sure looks like her.
We stopped in at another place called Nudie's. I know, it sounds like a strip club, but it's not. "Nudie" is Nudie Cohn (w), a Ukranian immigrant who became famous as a fashion designer. He was responsible (or to blame, depending on your point of view) for many of the sequin-studded outfits that some country artists wore. He also designed outrageously decorated cars, like this one hanging over the stage:
You can't see it in the picture, but that car has cowhide seat covers, door handles shaped like revolvers, and a great big set of bull horns on the front grille. Also, notice those metallic dots behind the rear seat? Those are silver dollars.
I don't know, though... I think I'd be afraid to perform on that stage, with that big ol' car hanging over my head!